Which business schools are potential applicants searching for the most? Where do they search from? Do they use desktop or mobile? We break down the data

The top of the business school applicant funnel is like a deep, dark jungle—vast, impenetrable in places, and tricky to navigate.

People express an early interest in applying to business school in a variety of ways—attending events, student fairs, speaking to students, contacting admissions staff directly—but most research starts in one place: online.

According to AIGAC’s 2018 MBA Applicant Survey, more than 80% of business school applicants target school websites as their most valuable source of information. And where does the search for business schools start? Google.

The more people searching for a school on Google, the more interest there is. Sure, people could be searching for a business school for any number of reasons, but you can bet that a good proportion will be potential applicants considering a degree program.

BusinessBecause decided to investigate this a little further. We took the world’s top-20-ranked business schools, according to the Financial Times’ Global MBA rankings, and analyzed each of their best-performing search terms on Google AdWords.